A unique system of satellite-tracking cameras designed, built and operated by a Canadian team has produced the first full year of satellite tracking data over Canada. One station alone – located in Eureka, Nvt., in the Canadian High Arctic – has now provided a full winter season of data with more than tens of millions of individual satellite observations over the North Pole.
This initiative, a collaboration between Western and Defence Research and Development Canada, has adapted technology and tools originally developed at Western for detecting meteors to efficiently monitor satellites over Canada, and by extension North America, using very low-cost cameras.
The system, now operating and deployed at four sites across Canada, including Eureka, is producing the first continuous satellite monitoring by Canadians, for Canadians of all space objects flying over the country. The Nunavut location has demonstrated the unique capability to track sun-synchronous space objects within orbital “choke points” only visible from Canada’s far north, or Antarctica.
F33ling-Fr33 on
Wow! This really highlights how busy we’ve made exosphere. I’m surprised by the amount of traffic.
Champagnerocker on
Blimey I’d have expected that sort of satellite activity at lower latitudes, but you’re a whisker below 80°N and still the sky is absolutely filled with them.
Kindly-Scar-3224 on
I understand the astronomers who complain about difficulty looking out of our planet toward infinity
_danada on
Polar orbit is prime real estate for satellites!
Artemis647 on
Do we know which satellites these are? Do SpaceX Starlink satellites even have coverage up in Nunavut?
Adeldor on
Given Eureka’s latitude, these are all polar or sun-synchronous satellites. The nature of such is a high concentration near the poles, hence the density apparent in this image. Of course, this is a time exposure. Looking up at the sky there with one’s eyes would look nothing like this.
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[https://news.westernu.ca/2025/06/camera-monitor-satellites-update/](https://news.westernu.ca/2025/06/camera-monitor-satellites-update/)
Excerpt from article
A unique system of satellite-tracking cameras designed, built and operated by a Canadian team has produced the first full year of satellite tracking data over Canada. One station alone – located in Eureka, Nvt., in the Canadian High Arctic – has now provided a full winter season of data with more than tens of millions of individual satellite observations over the North Pole.
This initiative, a collaboration between Western and Defence Research and Development Canada, has adapted technology and tools originally developed at Western for detecting meteors to efficiently monitor satellites over Canada, and by extension North America, using very low-cost cameras.
The system, now operating and deployed at four sites across Canada, including Eureka, is producing the first continuous satellite monitoring by Canadians, for Canadians of all space objects flying over the country. The Nunavut location has demonstrated the unique capability to track sun-synchronous space objects within orbital “choke points” only visible from Canada’s far north, or Antarctica.
Wow! This really highlights how busy we’ve made exosphere. I’m surprised by the amount of traffic.
Blimey I’d have expected that sort of satellite activity at lower latitudes, but you’re a whisker below 80°N and still the sky is absolutely filled with them.
I understand the astronomers who complain about difficulty looking out of our planet toward infinity
Polar orbit is prime real estate for satellites!
Do we know which satellites these are? Do SpaceX Starlink satellites even have coverage up in Nunavut?
Given Eureka’s latitude, these are all polar or sun-synchronous satellites. The nature of such is a high concentration near the poles, hence the density apparent in this image. Of course, this is a time exposure. Looking up at the sky there with one’s eyes would look nothing like this.